Losing weight for healthy living is difficult, but that's not new. What's interesting is the role our brain plays in regulating our weight—any weight—and why that makes it so difficult to lose weight when we want to. Neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt explains in this TED talk, and discusses how eating mindfully can help.
The talk is a little long, about 12 minutes, but it really is worth a watch if you're struggling with your own diet or weight loss goals. Ultimately, she describes the intersection of human nature and our modern, drive-through world—where the brain is hard-wired to accept food and build energy reserves when food is available, but resist efforts to burn those reserve, largely because food scarcity has been a problem for much longer in human history than food abundance. She goes on to explain how the brain will, usually after a short period, determine what the body's "set point" weight is, kind of an unconscious "ideal weight" that has nothing to do with our health, but everything to do with food availability and lifestyle. She even explains how thinner people will burn fewer calories, thanks to the brain's interference, which makes it even harder to shed pounds.
All of those factors combined add up to why it's so difficult to lose weight when we want to, and why diets are so dysfunctional—our brain is now wired to send us powerful signals to keep us at the weight that it has deemed appropriate, even if our conscious mind wants something completely different. Instead, we get hungry, we overeat, we make poor dietary choices, and we're back to square one, feeling miserable about the whole endeavor. That's why "just put down the fork" is never a real path to weight loss.
Instead, the key is focusing on a healthy lifestyle instead—exercise, activity, healthy habits—and mindful eating (eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full, strictly), as in eating when you're hungry or when you need to, and being aware of what you're eating and how long you're eating while you dine. She gets into the importance of healthy habits at about 7:40, and what she means by "mindful eating" at 9:28. Skip there to go to the punchline, but the rest of the talk is interesting—and informative, if you've struggled with healthy eating (or know someone who's trying to losing weight) as well.